


Pinch, Prick, Poke

by SheWhoWillRise



Series: Sequoia [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13117500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWhoWillRise/pseuds/SheWhoWillRise
Summary: "I can do this. I can do this,” she breathed, making her hands into angry red, white-knuckled fists. She bit her lip, gnawing it raw between her crooked teeth. Her stomach constricted, giving her a wave of nauseous butterflies. I will save lives.





	Pinch, Prick, Poke

**Author's Note:**

> For the writing contest: Past Meets the Present to Create the Future

Waiting for the the inevitable, her legs bounces with anxiety. Her mother has been bugging her to do this since she turned sixteen, so she was hoping to steal her nerves today. Surprise her mother with how brave she was. 

“I can do this. _I can do this_ ,” she breathed, making her hands into angry red, white-knuckled fists. She bit her lip, gnawing it raw between her crooked teeth. Her stomach constricted, giving her a wave of nauseous butterflies. _I will save lives._ Repeated in her head, but she couldn't get the image of pain out of her head. Of being strapped down to the chair, the needle ripping through her skin. The pleas for mom to make them stop. The filling of the glass bottles with an amber red liquid that made her want to feel more sick.

“I can't do this,” she rasped out through her panic attack. Her skin itched with heightened nerves. “I can't fucking do this.”

She walked up to the desk and told them she had to recline, lying through her teeth about not eating enough instead of the truth. She felt so pathetic when she looked through the doors to the other room. Other kids were able to do it no problem, why couldn't she just suck up her anxiety and follow suit?

It took years to accept the fact that she was, indeed, not pathetic because she couldn't donate blood. Years of therapy and talking with others about their fears in the circle. Childhood trauma of having her blood taken at the hospital has traumatized her adult self, at least that's what Dr. Jacobs said. Exposure therapy wasn't recommended for her, but she tried. Tried on busses and in other school sanctioned events.

Then her brother got into a motorcycle accident.

“He needs a blood transfusion,” the doctor told them. He was type O negative.

Her mother screamed at her to do it. Her father wouldn't look or talk to her. Her baby brother looked so frail on the hospital bed.

_But she couldn't do it._

Maybe she was pathetic after all.


End file.
